Teach like a champion 3.0: 63 techniques that put students on the path to college - Lemov Doug 2021

Technique 44: Habits of discussion
Building ratio through discussion

Imagine for a moment that we're sitting with a group of people. You say, “I just finished The Giver. It's so good and psychologically jarring.”

I say, “I'm almost done with The Hunger Games. It's so violent but still pretty good.”

Then our friend Corinne joins in. “I just couldn't get into The Hunger Games,” she says.

This series of comments does not quite qualify as a discussion—at least not in the fullest sense. Instead, it exemplifies what's often missing when we call disconnected verbal interactions a “discussion.” Was my comment, “I'm almost done with The Hunger Games,” a response to your comment about The Giver, for example? Did I say that because they are both dystopian novels and I see some connection? Did I hear your point about it being psychologically jarring? Am I comparing that to the violence of Hunger Games? Am I just using the opportunity to talk about a book that I like instead of one that you like? Am I trying to talk about The Giver or changing the subject? If I'd said something like, “I hear you about The Giver. Someone told me The Hunger Games would be similar but it's not as good to me. Maybe because it's so violent,” I would be connecting my comment to yours and making it clear how they were related. And I would be making it clear that I had listened carefully to what you said.

Corinne's comment was similar. When she said, “I couldn't get into The Hunger Games,” was she changing the subject due to her inability to finish books? Excusing herself from the conversation on the grounds that she hadn't read the book? Or was she saying she had stopped reading The Hunger Games because it was so violent? Was she following up on my comment? Did she hear it? A bit of framing—“Funny the violence didn't bother me but I couldn't get into The Hunger Games. It just wasn't as well written as The Giver”—could have helped us to see those connections and knit our comments together. She was in fact comparing the books we'd both mentioned and showing that she was thinking about the connection.

We all could have connected our ideas and demonstrated that we were listening, but we didn't. Our comments were related, but not really a discussion so much as a series of statements loosely grouped around an idea.

Conversations in the classroom are often similar. A discussion is supposed to be a mutual endeavor by a group of people to develop, refine, or contextualize an idea or set of ideas, and that's different from a series of loosely related comments. What characterizes discussion in the most successful classrooms is a commitment to connecting and relating ideas and opinions. A discussion that's valuable will feature comments that are consistently useful to others, not just interesting to those who made them, and which establish the speaker's understanding of and interest in what was previously said.

People who make a conversation effective show they are listening carefully by occasionally offering brief summaries of other participants' comments or by making a specific effort to connect the point they're making to what someone else said. A comment that refers back to earlier ideas and strives for that connection makes for a discussion—for example, saying “Funny, the violence didn't bother me” both clarifies the argument and shows appreciation for what other conversants have said. And it makes us feel like we belong and have things to contribute. It convinces us to share more, and perhaps to believe ourselves to be a little more capable.

Generally, of course, people don't consciously think, I'll make it clear I'm building off someone else's point or I'll reinforce that I value the person I'm talking to right now even though I disagree. Most positive discussion-building actions are habits triggered by a conversant's intuitive sense of how discussion should work—a mental model. So if a teacher can instill strong conversational habits and an effective mental model, she will help students quite naturally build discussions that are connected, in which participants show appreciation for one another.

Cultures that express appreciation during discussion and especially when there is disagreement are important for more reasons than cordiality. Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Righteous Mind that people are much more likely to change their opinion when they like the person they are talking to and know he or she likes and cares about them. Ideas that change us come from people we perceive as allies. We like and trust them first; then we listen with openness. This is especially true when we already believe something. Someone who confronts us almost never changes an established belief; only someone we want to believe does that, Haidt finds. So when mutual respect and psychological safety pervade, and where the ethos is collaborative, and the message is We are working together to understand this, then, true open-mindedness and maximum learning are likely to occur.

In most cases, good discussion skills, those that allow certain people to bring out the best in their colleagues, are not “naturally occurring.” Especially not today, when abrasive models of conversation are so commonly normalized on social media. To reliably have great discussions in your classroom, it's necessary to instill such behaviors deliberately. Doing so is a technique I call Habits of Discussion, and it's a powerful tool. The return on the investment in teaching students how to discuss is immense.

The first step in building strong Habits of Discussion is a series of nearly invisible behaviors displayed by participants in a conversation that signal the importance of the endeavor and remind other participants of their belonging in a community that values them. These include things like establishing and maintaining eye contact and engaging frequently in prosocial nonverbal behaviors, such as nodding to show understanding and others I described in the critical technique Habits of Attention. “A small signal can have a huge effect on people's sense of belonging and membership,” social psychologist Gregory Walton tells Daniel Coyle in The Culture Code. “But the deeper thing to realize is that you can't just give the cue once.” It has to occur frequently and steadily.

The fundamental actions participants take to build a strong discussion are listening carefully and showing speakers they care about what they're saying. No one makes a discussion-changing insight to a room full of people whose body language says I don't care. Maintaining eye contact not only helps communicate both ideas but helps students discipline themselves to “lock in” on the person they're listening to and helps them “hear more.” By looking at the person talking, a listener picks up gestures and facial expressions that add meaning to the words themselves.

An additional fundamental comes from the technique Format Matters. Students have to speak loudly enough to be heard clearly. This works best when it is a habit. Nothing breaks the thread of a discussion like the teacher saying, “Carly, we can't hear you,” or, worse, the situation going uncorrected. It's fine if we can't hear you makes a pretty clear statement about the importance afforded to Carly's thoughts. Not only can people not respond to what they can't hear, but when people are straining to hear, their facial expressions and body language change. You cannot make a what-you-are-saying-is-interesting face when you are making an I-can-barely-hear-you one.

To the importance of eye contact, listening behaviors, and reinforcing voice volume, we can add three specific additional fundamentals: names, reciprocal looking, and rephrasing.

Consider this moment from a discussion in an eighth-grade classroom about Lincoln's inaugural address.

“I think Lincoln looked weak and maybe conflicted in extending an ’olive branch’ to the Southern states,” Jabari says.

“No,” Jamila counters, “He says he will enforce federal laws in states that secede. He's drawing a clear line in the sand but trying not to seem like he's provoking conflict.” Jamila is looking at the teacher as she says this, implying that the teacher is the person whose opinion matters most. Jabari, and the fact that the argument she is responding to is his, is just not that relevant to Jamila.

Now imagine the scene slightly differently. Michelle turns to Jabari. “Jabari,” she says, “I don't read Lincoln's words as ’conflicted.’ He says he will enforce federal laws in states that secede. He's drawing a clear line in the sand but trying not to seem like he's provoking conflict.”

In looking at Jabari, in using his name in the response and implicitly summarizing his point and using his exact words—“I don't read Lincoln's words as conflicted”—Michelle has emphasized the fact that she is responding to him directly. Her actions say, I listened carefully to your argument; I understood and respect it. Alex Pentland, who leads the program on Connection Studies at MIT, notes that studies on team performance have found that cultures where “members communicate directly with one another … not just the team leader”⁷ tend to be the most successful and collaborative learning environments.

Reciprocally looking at Jabari—looking back at him to show she is responding to him—rephrasing his argument and using his name all build the fabric of support and connection. They reinforce a sense of community in the classroom throughout the discussion.

Perhaps this is why I often see positive outlier teachers reinforce this expectation in class, either verbally—“Great; turn to Janelle and tell her that”—or nonverbally, with a brief point of the finger or eyes reminding students to look at the person they're responding to. They're reminding their students of how important it is for people who intend to discuss an idea to talk to each other.

Now let's upgrade Michelle's response even a little more. If Michelle said, “I read that passage differently, Jabari. I don't read Lincoln's words as ’conflicted,’” her words “I read that passage a little differently” show that she is relating her argument to his. I agree that these are important words; here's a different way to think about them. Making the effort to frame the connection shows that she thinks Jabari's comment was important. Participants who, like Michelle, tacitly reference preceding comments via syntactical structures embedded within the grammar of their sentences, make them important. Some typical phrases that do that include:

· “I understand why you'd say that, but …”

· “I was just thinking of something similar, that …”

· “And then there was another example of that …”

· “The thing that doesn't take into account is …”

· “I want to build on what you said …”

In each of these examples—whether the new speaker is agreeing with the first speaker, disagreeing with her, or somewhere in between—the comment begins by framing the relationship between the present comment and the previous one, ideally in some respectful way. Teaching students to use frames like this to weave their comments together with those around them results in more cohesive discussions. It is usually accomplished through the use of sentence starters—short phrases that teachers socialize students to use and adapt, that facilitate building off someone else's idea.

Many teachers start by posting sentence starters like these on their wall and spending a few days asking students to practice using basic ones, saying things like, “Great; can you use a sentence starter to frame that response and talk directly to Aleisha?” or “Today I'm just going to listen for how well you use our sentence starters to build off one another during our discussion.” Or, as BreOnna Tindall described, praising effective use of them, “Oh, you built on that idea so well. That was so good!” Over time, the list itself would become less critical as using the sentence starters and adaptations of them become a habit.

The simplest sentence starters are “I agree because …” or “I disagree because …” These are useful, especially, for getting students started in responding to one another and situating their comments within the larger conversation, but as many of the teachers I know have developed their use of sentence starters over time, they've pushed to get beyond “agree” or “disagree” pretty quickly. But sentence starters don't just reflect how students think during discussions; they shape it, too—in this case tending to socialize students to take sides, to focus on “winning” the discussion, to dig in their heels and try to prove their original comment was right. The best discussions are less about proving oneself right than they are about finding nuanced common ground. Agree/disagree is an acceptable starting point but students can and should think in more complex ways. So it's important to introduce students to sentence starters that push them to find other ways of connecting their arguments' to others:

“There's another piece of evidence to think about …”

“There's some evidence that makes me not sure what to think …”

“I'd like to build on _______'s idea …”

“I think there are two ways of reading that …”

“There's another example of what ______ is talking about …”

“Another way you might interpret that is …”

“I think it's more complex than what we've been saying because …”

Nonverbals, too, can be critical to building up the habit of using sentence starters. Maggie Johnson, a reading teacher at Troy Prep Middle School, developed different hand signals that her students used when they wanted to develop someone else's idea as opposed to making a new comment. When they want to make a new point during a discussion, they raise their hand in the usual fashion. When they want to “add on,” develop, or respond to the previous point, they raise two fingers. This allows Maggie to shape the direction of the discussion even without participating in it. She can decide whether it's more valuable to stick with the present point or move on to a new one, and she can move in that direction merely by choosing whom she calls on to go next. In fact, keeping a discussion focused on a point of importance or value is one of the most important things for a teacher to attend to during discussion, a topic I will discuss in technique 46, Disciplined Discussion.

A last element of Habits of Discussion is the addition of teaching moves that cause students to build the habit—and ideally a mental model—of one speaker building off the previous. Follow-on questioning—an adaptation of the “follow-on” from the Cold Call (technique 34)—and follow-on prompting can help. In a follow-on, the teacher consistently asks one student to respond to something another student has said, whether or not the second student has volunteered to do so. Something as simple as, “Skylar, do you agree with Markus?” (asked in good faith and not as a “gotcha”; see Cold Call for more details) establishes the expectation that Skylar must always be listening well enough to be able to offer a reasonable response, even if only to say that he's not sure about a particular point. Expecting Skylar to be able to respond reinforces peer-to-peer listening and, importantly, reinforces that listening is an expectation no matter who is speaking—it is a courtesy not merely reserved for the teacher. Of course to build the habit of follow-on in discussion you could use it without the Cold Call. Skylar might have raised his hand and instead of simply calling on him by saying his name you might remind him of the expectation that he develop the previous comment by saying, “Skylar, what do you think of what Markus just said?”

Instead of asking a directive question like, “Skylar, do you agree with Markus?” follow-on prompting is nondirective, with the result that it disrupts the thread of the conversation less and avoids steering the second student's response, which in some cases is part of the purpose of discussion. A teacher who's using follow-on prompting might keep his students on their toes and listening to one another by using fast follow-on prompts five or six times per class—enough to be predictably unpredictable without breaking the flow of students responding directly to one another via Cold Call.

You can see Christine Torres doing this in the second half of her Keystone video. She asks students to opine on whether Kirsty is brave when she talks back to Nazi soldiers in a key scene of Number the Stars.

Mark says yes: She's young and vulnerable and brave in speaking up to those in power.

“Build on, Jasmine …” Christine says. This prompt reminds Jasmine to refer back to Mark's answer and contextualize her remarks accordingly. Like saying develop or weigh in or say more, build on reminds a student to both refer back to the previous comment and stay on the topic at hand, but unlike the more commonly used agree or disagree (or do you agree?) it also allows for a wider array of possible responses. Encouraging students to agree/disagree focuses them on who’s right rather than more nuanced forms of thinking. It narrows the range of potential responses.

In this case Jasmine chooses a relatively straightforward connection between her comment and Mark's: “I agree with you, Mark,” she says, “and I'd like to build on to it …” She’s connected directly to Mark to show it's a discussion and indicated how her comment is related. She will be describing further evidence of Kirsty's bravery.

Next to be called on is Nate. “What do you think, Nate?” Christine says. It's a subtle reminder to situate his remark relative to Mark and Jasmine's comments.

“I respectfully disagree with you, Mark and Jasmine,” Nate begins.

Through this approach, prompts like “develop” allow Christine to remind her students to practice responding to one another with little intervention from her.

There's a certain amount of sophistication and maturity evident in a class that uses Habits of Discussion, but the technique is effective even with younger students. For example, Anthony in Akilah Bond's Keystone video responds to Cheyenne about halfway through by saying, “I kind of agree with you, Cheyenne,” and Michael begins to add, “What we're missing from Sonoa's response is …”